I don't own any of the Final Fantasy 8 characters, but the newbies are mine.
Chapter 31
Standing in front of a new stone in the cemetery, Ariadne looked at the girl in her arms, with tears in her eyes, "Do you think your grandparents would let me adopt you?"
"It's not us you need to worry about, dear," Eric's mother patted Ariadne on the shoulder, "We've read Eric's letters, he spoke so fondly of you, we can only imagine that you would be the person he'd have chosen to be a second mother to his daughter."
"It's our little granddaughter you need to make sure won't argue the decision," Eric's father sighed, "And the government deciding that a mercenary isn't a stable enough person to take care of her."
Holding tightly to Ariadne's neck and hair, cried, "Daddy was a mersen'ry, why can't Nadne be?"
"The government wouldn't tell her she couldn't be," Maria patted her 'adopted' sister on the back, "just that she couldn't be when she wants to take care of you."
"That's stupid," the little girl scorned the thought, "Daddy and Mommy both were, and nobody told them it was too hard."
"Eh," Lynne piped up, "that's just because she's all alone. If she had others helping her-"
"Who says she'd be alone?" Maria swatted Lynne on the arm, "she'd have all of us at the Garden helping her."
"Not to mention the fact that she's standing down from active duty," Max smirked at the little girl from where he stood behind Ariadne.
"Oh, you weren't supposed to tell her that yet!" Ariadne looked around to glare at him, "It was going to be a surprise. I was going to get his parents' permission to adopt her, then tell her when it went through that she wasn't gonna lose me anytime soon because I'm just a consultant and teacher to mercenaries now!"
"Sorry," not looking in the slightest apologetic, Max was still trying to make the motions to it, "I didn't know. I just thought you'd like to know your request went through. As far as Galbadia, Trabia, Esthar and Balamb Gardens are concerned, you're no longer a SeeD on active duty. Your pay will decrease a bit on the scale of things, but you'll get a commission for your efforts at teaching, so it should just about even out."
Squealing, Ariadne bent, set her burden on the ground to stand on her own two feet and she glomped a rather surprised Max. Ironically, so did little Merinda.
Blushing, "Next time, I'm sending Squall or Kiros to do this," Max patted the young child on the head and Ariadne on the shoulder, "You wouldn't mind letting go sometime soon, would you?"
Now blushing like Max, "Ooops, sorry, forgot, you don't let just anyone touch you."
"Eh," Max shook his head as both females let go, "I knew it was a mistake coming here while there were people still here."
Lynne snorted, "You're gonna have to get over it eventually. You agreed to be a part of no less than two weddings, you're gonna have to participate in the dances involved,"
Maria laughed and interrupted, "Lynne, don't scare him off, Xia would shoot you if she knew you'd scared off one of her groom's men. And the groom has a hard enough time getting along with other guys that they don't need any lost!"
Ariadne grinned, "Not to mention the two walking batteries would both string you up by your toenails if they knew you'd lost them their ring bearer."
"Er," Lynne paled, "They couldn't, it'd lose both weddings another member."
"Let's see," Selphie mused aloud, "Loss of one guest, versus loss of ring bearer and potential comic relief? Hm..."
"I knew it," Max muttered, "This is the last time I let myself get roped into something like this. I don't care if it has been four months, the last time I was here, I still have nightmares from."
"Nightmares?" Irvine drawled, "I thought you'd actually gotten something pleasant out of the whole visit."
"I can't help but think Eric is laughing at all of this," Ariadne smirked, "Somewhere, he's laughing at the fact that even a year after he was buried, Max has almost developed a phobia of his headstone."
"Hey now," Max looked at Ariadne, still a little off-center from the teasing, "I don't have a phobia of his headstone, when I'm the only one here. When others show up too, sure, almost, but by myself, I'm just fine."
"Or when there's only one other person with you," Seifer, who'd just joined the impromptu reunion quipped, "Like, say-"
"I think this conversation is getting older than little pitchers should hear," Eric's mother swept her granddaughter into her arms and trundled the littler girl to the car the family had driven to the final resting place of her son.
"Don't mind us leaving though," Eric's father followed his wife, "We didn't mean to be involved in this SeeD picking session. Go on teasing the poor man. Though I think you'll have to catch him before he takes the vehicle he arrived in with him."
Lynne sputtered, "That's our ride back to Esthar Garden!"
Selphie snorted, "He'd better not be thinking of piloting the Ragnarok! I'm the one who calls uncontested dibs on it!"
"How exactly is it you came back with the rest of them all flustered and annoyed with you again?" Squall smirked as Kiros asked the question both had been itching to pose to the man pretending to sleep on the recliner in the staff lounge.
Muttering under his breath about annoying people who didn't know when to let a person pretend to sleep to avoid stupid questions, Max sat up straight in the chair and looked at Kiros sullenly, "They decided to tease me about the last time I went with anyone to Eric's grave."
Snickering, Kiros chose to ignore Max's mutterings, "Well, the whole love-fest that was in some counts inappropriate was mildly humorous."
"So was watching you try to figure out how to get away from the nutcases," Squall added, "But what brought that up this time?"
"I told Ariadne she'd been approved for consultant status, and she glomped me," Max still seemed to think that was an affront to his personal space, "And it all went downhill from there."
"So are the weddings called off?" Kiros asked, seeming rather hopeful.
"No," Max glared, but they had to bring up the theory that I've got a phobia of Eric's grave. I admit, after the last two times, I could develop one, but" he shrugged, "I'm more like uncomfortable around the two couples, as who knows when Xia or Selphie will go off in fits of ordering people to stay in good shape before the weddings, or hyperactive hugs?"
"Too bad you lost your immunity," Squall smirked, his immunity to such things still intact.
"And whose fault is that," Max mock-glared, "For volunteering me as ring bearer at the wedding from-" Max winced, "It's bad enough they're both enough to wear out transformers, but what made him think it would be okay to pick a color scheme? I'd swear she's color blind, but I've never seen anyone pinpoint baby-blue like her."
"No," Kiros agreed, "She's not color-blind, she just doesn't care if it clashes. Hence, you find banana yellow all over her wedding plans."
"Good thing Seifer's not coming to that wedding," Squall had an evil idea, "Zell would never live down the chicken-wuss image that would ensue."
"You leave me out of your pranks that point to other people," Max threw a cushion at Squall, who caught it and smirked, "The last one wound up with ME watching Lynne's students while he recovered in the medical wing from the beating Rinoa gave him. He still can't figure out what made her think he'd planted the whoopie cushion on her chair."
Snorting, Squall attempted an innocent look, but in the leather he wore, it was a doomed effort from the beginning, "I don't know what you're getting at, Tyler, I never got any where near her chair that day."
"Just like you never planted the dog and chicken pillows in Seifer and Zell's rooms. Leaving them for them to find and assume the other did it," Max muttered, "And when they calmed down, they realized that the only other person who'd been in the Training Center was the one who'd been trying to get out when they slammed the door in his face. I swear, your next prank, you'd better leave me completely out of it!"
"And here I was going to tell everyone in the Garden I'd been the prankster," Squall smirked, "And that you'd guilt-tripped me into confessing."
"Don't even get me started on that rumor," Max leaned back in his chair, with an exhausted sigh, "They started in on that again, too."
Kiros laughed, "Well, with the fact that people often see one of you leaving the other's rooms at odd hours, can you blame them for making that assumption?"
"Yes, I can," Max glared at Kiros, "Because, one, it's none of their business, two I've never even been in his room, and three he's never been in mine. They just think they've seen such odd happenstances."
Snorting his disbelief, Kiros raised an eyebrow, "What if I told you I was one of those people?"
"You were seeing things," Max muttered, standing, "Well, as much as I'd love, sarcasm here had better be obvious, to continue this, I have to go. I, unlike a certain Headmaster and Commander of Garden, have classes to teach, though I'd still like to know why I'm the one teaching the class on misdirection and subterfuge, I haven't any skill in either."
After the tall redhead left the room, Kiros and Squall looked at each other for a second before both burst out laughing, or smirked, as laughing was still too much for Squall.
"He's got no clue, does he?" Kiros pointed at the door as he asked.
"None at all," Squall smirked.
"Someone tell me what I did to deserve this day?" Max muttered under his breath as he walked to his rooms, "I don't pull pranks on them, I don't video record things between two people dressed up as others and try to pass them off as actual security tapes,"
"Something tells me you're so infuriated because it's all pushing you into a corner," Rinoa stood, blocking Max's door, "Are you trying not to admit something?"
"Not you too," Max groaned, "Look, I hate having to say this, but you're all like siblings. All of you. I suppose I should have expected something like this, since it seems the feeling is reciprocated, but why?"
"Did you ever wonder why you can still act so young though you've seen so much?" Rinoa seemed to be changing the subject.
"Oh, just about every day," Max leaned against the wall near his door, opposite the raven-haired sorceress, "Why? You have your own theory now?"
"Actually, I do," Rinoa smiled serenely, "I've been doing research in the library at Caraway's mansion, in all of the Gardens, and in Esthar. There have been reports of people like you before."
"What?" Max paled, "How do you mean, like me?"
"Well, about the time of the First Sorceress, mind you this is partly no more than folklore, there are tales of two men that lived through the entire lifetime of the Sorceress, acting as her protectors. Neither was her Knight, as he'd been recorded as being by her side too, but they were like, squires or something. At least, that's what most sources say. They also say that one of the men was taller, and had lighter hair. They never agreed on his hair color exactly, though all of them say he was the fairer of the two. The other was firmly recorded as brunet."
Getting nervous, "What has this to do with either my being boxed in with the pranks or my being immature for my age?"
"The sources in Esthar try to call the taller one a Sorcerer," Rinoa crossed her arms in front of her chest, "They point at his ability to use magic without Junction as proof, but everyone knows that Sorcerers don't exist. Never have, never will. Back then it just seemed like a quirk. Now, with Odine's obsession, it's been proven that the traits necessary for any support of the Sorcery gift are found on the genes that make one female, and thus are missing in males."
"Okay," Max, while absorbing the knowledge, was still not adding things up. He might have been in denial, but he still didn't see how this had anything to do with him.
"Which would make the other his Knight, in their opinions," Rinoa smirked, "But as we both know the former was no Sorcerer, the latter couldn't have been a Knight. But the sources are actually quite loquacious about the talents of the darker of the two. And all of those abilities point at a Knight of someone, even if it wasn't the supposed Sorcerer."
Raising his eyebrow, Max began wishing she'd hurry up and get to the point. He did have to teach in the morning, after all.
"You're being positively stubborn about this. Fine I'll stop dithering," Rinoa reached out and patted Max on the shoulder, ignoring his flinch, "With Seifer being Ultimecia's Knight, though they're separated by who knows how many hundred years, we know that one's Knight need only remain alive for the Sorceress to benefit from him in some effect. So it's possible that the darker of the two men was a Knight, just not to the 'Sorcerer,'" here she mimed her verbal quotes, "And the powers of the tall one, while not limited to the use of magic without Guardians, were most often labeled as such. He was also recorded as never aging."
"You mentioned that," Max interjected, "And that the other one was also ageless."
"I didn't say the dark one was ageless," Rinoa smirked, having finally gotten audience participation, "But you are right, something about the symbiotic nature of the two allowed both to seem in their early twenties throughout the time of the First Sorceress. The strangest thing is though, all the sources agree on only one thing. That one of the men is recorded to have said something about living through the First Sorceress, the Last Sorceress, and the Sorceress of Time Compression. And the other responded with something flippant about 'not without some scars to show for his pains.' Is it starting to sound familiar yet?"
"Rinoa," Max leaned his head against the door, "I don't think I even want to know what spurred this research on. But if you're right in what I think you're guessing it won't make much difference. It's happened, thus it will happen, and there's no change we can make to it," running his hand through his hair, Max sighed, "I suppose you have a theory as to who the darker one is? Augh, never mind, I'm too tired for this joke of a farce, I'm going into my room, where I'm going to sleep until morning."
With that, he typed the code to his room, let the door slide open, walked through, and nodded to Rinoa. As the door slid shut, he turned and walked further into the room.
On the other side of the door, Rinoa muttered to herself, "That's how all time works. Even if we know what comes in our futures, we pretend it's fake, so we can continue living. You've managed to stay somewhat sane by refusing to age psychologically all this time. If you're ever left in one place long enough, you might just snap. I just hope your friend in the past is strong enough to help you stay functional."
Eh. It's been three, four years since I started this? I meant to finish it a long time ago. Particularly when I knew what I meant to end it WITH. If I'm not careful, I could end up being known for sad endings. Oh well. Though this wasn't the end I originally had planned, when I started, nor when I restarted, nor when I re-restarted, this will have to do. If there are any questions, please ask. The biggest change to my writing from here on out will be that I have every intention of writing out a basic line of the plot before hand, so I always know what's SUPPOSED to happen. This way the story won't run away with me, the muses won't run away with the story, and the ending won't just plain run away. I might also try to write the whole thing before posting any so I can further prevent such problems.